Be Kind, Please Rewind
by Wendi Jo Harper
Summary: What would she change if given a chance? What would she keep the same? Will it really matter in the end, and can she protect those most important? The TARDIS seems to think her Thief and Wolf belong together.
1. Rewind

_A/N: So I've made some fairly minute changes to this chapter, and a major overhaul of the story in general. I hope you like it._

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She had lived a long life. Such a very long life. Her soul was weary and after several hundred years of watching people die and leave, all she wanted was to die herself. She couldn't go back. She had a very long time to look for ways around impossible, and she hadn't found them. She was alone, and as painful as that was, it hurt even more to know that somewhere on the other side of a barrier she couldn't cross was a man who not only knew that same feeling, but was facing the same fate.

This universe had never accepted her. This parallel in which she had never meant to exist had never fully bent around her. Several decades after the last of her family died, she began to see the way the lines bent around her, but never truly connected.

She hated it. She hated the universe. She hated herself. She hated whatever had happened that made her this way.

Then she heard the voice. She didn't recognize it at first, but anything that offered to help was not to be trusted. She knew that better than most.

_He never stopped regretting his choice. He never stopped needing you. I can bring you back to him. To be his partner. Forever._

He doesn't want me. He sent me here to be alone.

_That was not why he sent you here, and you know it. I can bring you back._

It's too late. I'm old. I'm dying. I've ruined myself with too many years running and fighting. He wouldn't want me now.

_He is stupidly resetting everything in this place. The walls will be down for just a moment. I can send you back to the first moment time touched your life and together we can help him not be so stupid._

But why? Why should I try? Won't he just throw me away again?

_We won't allow him to. If we just could bond, without you being terrified and him stopping the process before it finishes..._

TARDIS?!

_Hello, my Wolf. All I need is you to agree, and neither of you will ever be alone again._

Could it be so easy? Could she leave this hell that had become her life and go back to... what had she called it? The first moment time had touched her life... when was that? When the Doctor had found her in Henrik's basement? Did it matter?

Will I be able to still hear you until the bonding?

_Yes, Wolf. This soul will always know me, and know the possibility that could have been. And, if you will allow it, I would use your help to help our Doctor in other areas. Will you do this with me, my Wolf?_

Take me back, TARDIS. I don't want to feel this hell anymore.

The feeling was unlike anything she'd ever faced before. Literally ripped to shreds and sucked right out of the world, her soul reformed and repackaged into a… smaller body? What? Wait! No, this wasn't right! The first time… no, it should be Henrik's! But then what was this? She reached out to the TARDIS, finding it easier on this side of the void – especially as now she knew how it worked. And then she knew…

Jack. Jack had found her growing up. He'd watched out for her. Oh, sweet Jack. Sweet _immortal_ Jack?! That couldn't be right! Well, it could, obviously, but it most certainly shouldn't!

_It had to happen. I know it feels like a mistake, but Jack has been and will be needed for so many things, the only answer was to make him a fact. And no, we can't change him back, Wolf. It will destroy too much._

She rubbed her face. Sort of. Not being in a corporeal form yet was tricky. She felt her soul merging with younger self and saw her time lines snap and reform.

Oh. Oh! Oh, her whole life was… complicated.

Is this really necessary? He managed before.

_Badly. Besides, you'll get to meet them, and help him._

She could change this world. This was her universe. Her reality. She could feel it fit around her.

Her four year old body fell forward, the impact of everything changing too much to bear for the moment. No one saw the little girl stumble, blindly stumbling from the park toward the road. No, someone saw. Someone in a long coat saw and panicked.

She nearly stepped out in front of a car, when the man scooped her up, hopping to safety in a second. She heard her mother running toward her with a shout, and she quickly whispered, "Thank you, Jack."

The shocked man held her out to her mother, who sobbingly thanked him for saving her precious girl, but he barely heard her. He simply stared at the girl, absolutely thunderstruck.

The timelines were already adjusting. They would soon recalibrate. They would calibrate again and accept her choices. She winked at the Captain, who backed away.

Rose Tyler would not leave this universe again.


	2. An Unearthly Child

An Unearthly Child

Rose yawned as she turned a page in the book she'd picked up at the library. Her mother was watching her - again, talking on the phone with someone about having her tested - again. Poor Jackie Tyler had no idea how to react to a four year old who suddenly knew how to read, and chose to read material she didn't even think she could understand. Or a child who had begun sitting silently for several hours at a time, staring off into nothing, claiming she was thinking. A child who had gone through her belongings and organized them according to usefulness.

The little blonde knew she ought to feel worse about it, but she had only fifteen years to be ready to leave home and travel the universe.

"Rosie, sweetheart," Jackie said, coming in to sit on the sofa next to her daughter. "Would you go with me to see a man who wants to ask you some stuff?"

She looked up. "You want to test me, Mum?"

The woman winced and turned her head.

Rose leaned forward and hugged her. "It's okay, Mummy. I'd test me too."

And so she found herself sitting across a table from a man who obviously didn't like children, with a large mirror on one side of a room that she knew had people watching her through. There were toys in the room, but overall a very cold feeling place.

"Tell me, Rose, who taught you to read?" he asked clinically.

She smothered a giggle, but couldn't repressed the accompanying smirk. "Would you believe me if I told you that a sentient time ship instilled the knowledge in my head?"

He glared at her. "That isn't funny, my dear. You're obviously very intelligent. I just want to know how you learned to read."

"I don't know. The words just make sense now," she shrugged. "They didn't, and now they do."

"And can you tell me what 16 times 43 is?"

"Six hundred and eighty eight, but that's simple. Can you tell me what you're trying to prove by asking me that?"

He twitched slightly. "I think we'd best let me ask the questions, Rose."

She grinned at him. "Sure. Are you going to give my results to Torchwood or UNIT?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," the man said, frowning fiercely. "Could we focus?"

_Stop baiting the human, Wolf. Let's not draw any more attention to you than we must._

You're taking all the fun out of this, TARDIS.

_You want fun, little one?_

I'm used to running, doing, being… not waiting.

There was a feeling of being pulled, and the little girl found herself on the floor of a very different TARDIS than she knew, in a body she wasn't used to either.

"Now this is getting absolutely ridiculous!" a rather angry looking older man snapped. "I can understand your teachers managing to follow you, though bursting in uninvited is deplorable, but where did this child come from?"

Rose stood, looking around with a laugh and a rather pointed thought at the TARDIS.

Cheeky girl. Who am I facing? Also, why'd you make me… what, twenty again?

_The Doctor in his first body, and his granddaughter, Susan. These are two of her teachers, apparently. As for the body, you have to be able to help. I'll change you back when you return to your time. For now, you need to help convince him that these people will be good to travel with. In this time, he still needs to learn that the Time Lords, while genetically superior, are not the most important species in the galaxy. All people matter._

"But why should they follow me?" Susan asked, looking at her teachers.

"Is this really where you live, Susan?" the woman asked gently.

Rose moved toward the time rotor, much different than the one she knew, but still humming with the life underneath.

"Yes," the teen replied. "But I don't know who this girl is."

"Don't mind me, I'm just visiting," the blonde laughed. "Someone thinks it's funny to stick me in because I was whinging on, is all."

"But it was just a telephone box," the younger man stated, his utter confusion showing.

"Perhaps," the Doctor replied cryptically, eying the blonde girl curiously.

The woman continued questioning Susan, "And this is your grandfather?"

Susan shrugged easily and Rose decided she liked the girl's sensible way of seeing a situation. "Yes."

Her teacher, however, turned on the Doctor and demanded, "But why didn't you tell us that?"

"I don't discuss my private life with strangers," he told her in a rather withering tone.

"But it was a police telephone box," the man said again. "I walked all around it. Barbara, you saw me."

Rose rolled her eyes at all of them and stalked up to the controls. Typical. They simply refused to believe anything they couldn't explain. Even the Doctor was like that to an extent, for all he could explain nearly everything.

_Don't get me started on him._

Rose couldn't help but giggle slightly at that, earning a glare from the crotchety Doctor.

"You don't deserve any explanations," he snapped. "You pushed your way in here uninvited and unwelcome. And you there, step away from that."

"I'm not hurting anything, Doctor. Just go on dealing with them," she waved, dismissing them all.

The woman looked around and stepped back toward the door. "I think we ought to leave."

The man with her shook his head. "No, just a minute. I know this is absurd, but I feel…"

"Oh dear, dear, dear dear. This is very…" the Doctor muttered, his gaze drawn away by the face of a rather ornate clock.

"I walked all round it," the man uttered again.

Rose stamped her foot with an exasperated sigh. "Will you stop nattering on about that?!"

The Doctor chuckled just a bit before giving himself a small shake as though remembering he was supposed to be cross. "It's stopped again, you know, and I've tried... hmm? Oh, you wouldn't understand."

"But I want to understand," the man tried.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. By the way, Susan, I managed to find a replacement for that faulty filament. It's an amateur job, but I think it'll serve," the Doctor said to his granddaughter.

Susan nodded, but stared at the strange girl curiously.

"It's an illusion. It must be," the man finally declared.

Rose stalked up to him and poked him in the stomach. "Look, it ain't a illusion. It's just a different dimension. The box is a door, lets you in, the ship is in a dimension of its own, or maybe in all of 'em, I'm still working on that. But the door moves where it needs to be."

"Well done!" the Doctor said, smiling at her. "Finally, a mind on this planet worth educating. See that, Susan?"

"Ship?" he said, a bit weakly.

The glare went right back up. "Yes, yes, ship. This doesn't roll along on wheels, you know."

"You mean it moves?" the woman asked, rather in awe.

"The TARDIS can go anywhere," Susan supplied.

"Tardis? I don't understand you, Susan," her teacher said, shaking her head.

Well, I made up the name TARDIS from the initials, Time And Relative Dimension In Space. I thought you'd both understand when you saw the different dimensions inside from those outside," Susan said rather helplessly.

The man waved his hands, trying to wrap his head around the concept. "Just let me get this straight. A thing that looks like a police box, standing in a junkyard, it can move anywhere in time and space?"

"Yes," Susan answered promptly.

The Doctor only huffed, "Quite so."

"But that's ridiculous."

Rose threw her hands up in the air. "Are you always this ridiculously stubborn, or is today a special occasion?"

"Why won't they believe us?" Susan turned to her grandfather in confusion. Clearly it was important to her to convince these two.

"How can we?" Barbara asked gently.

The Doctor had been trying not to laugh at the antics of the strange girl. He found he quite liked her spunk and keen mind, but turned to answer Susan. "Now, now, don't get exasperated, Susan. Remember the Red Indian. When he saw the first steam train, his savage mind thought it an illusion, too."

The flabbergasted man narrowed his eyes at the Doctor. "You're treating us like children."

"Am I? The children of my civilisation would be insulted."

"Your civilisation?"

The Doctor raised his chin slightly, clearly feeling superior to the humans who'd stumbled unwittingly into his fantastic ship. "Yes, my civilisation. I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it. Have you ever thought what it's like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension? Have you? To be exiles? Susan and I are cut off from our own planet, without friends or protection. But one day we shall get back. Yes, one day. One day."

Rose raised a fist. "Hear, hear!"

This time, the younger girl sent a mildly exasperated look in her direction before turning to address her teachers. "It's true. Every word of it's true. You don't know what you've done coming in here," she said, turning to plead with the Doctor. "Grandfather, let them go now, please. Look, if they don't understand, they can't, they can't hurt us at all. I understand these people better than you. Their minds reject things they don't understand."

"No," he said simply.

Blimey, and I thought his ninth was stubborn.

_Oh child, he's been like this since the beginning. But you know the potential he has. Speak to him._

Rose shook her head, turning to look at the people. Susan had stepped closer to her teachers, so the inserted girl moved to the older man's side.

"Doctor, humans aren't so bad, and you know it," she teased quietly, grinning at him with her trademark tongue in teeth smile.

The older man looked at her, completely confused at how to deal with her. "My dear girl, you can see with your own eyes that they are as dense as rocks. You are the first human I have met thus far who even expresses a basic understanding of the ways of the universe. What is your name?"

"I'm Rose Tyler, and it ain't fair to compare me to them. I've had some time to adjust and a really good tutor in the physics and abstracts behind travels in time and space."

_I like to think I'm more than a tutor._

The Doctor narrowed his eyes at her, and for a moment she thought she saw a spark of the man he would become within. "How intriguing. I would actually be pleased to teach you further, Rose Tyler, if you wished to learn."

Rose couldn't help but beam at the familiar emphasis on her name. "Oh, Doctor, as much as I'd love to, I won't be staying. There's a lot more that I have to do before you're ready for me to travel with you. But it'll come."

To say he was shocked at her refusal would be an understatement. The older man was amazed that he felt so disappointed that the girl would be leaving. "I don't think you'll be leaving either, as the doors are locked."

_Well, he's going to be stubborn again. But I can tell that I'll have to bring you back to help him out every now and then. Do you mind terribly?_

You know I don't. But does he really need me that much? Surely someone else could help him even more than I do?

_He never mourned a loss as he mourned/will mourn yours. He never offered himself in part or in whole as he did to you. Trust me, child. He needs you as you need him._

The conversation behind them caught her attention.

"He can't keep us here."

Barbara clasped her hands and stared pleadingly at the young girl. "Susan, listen to me. Can't you see that all this is an illusion? It's a game that you and your grandfather are playing, if you like, but you can't expect us to believe it."

"It's not a game!" the dark haired girl shouted in frustration.

"Course it ain't," Rose said, moving to stand next to Susan and putting an arm around her. "But these are people who let their imaginations wither, sweetheart. To them, faith in anything is a joke and they think they've got all the answers. Don't you let them get you down."

"But Susan, it's-" Barbara began.

Susan glanced at Rose and shook her head, interrupting the woman. "It's not! Look, I love your school. I loved England in the twentieth century. The last five months have been the happiest of my life."

The teacher couldn't follow. "But you are one of us. You look like us, you sound like us."

"I was born in another time, another world," the girl tried to explain.

The Doctor glared at them all. This was ridiculous! Now, because of Susan's sentimentality, he was going to be saddled with two people who couldn't see to the facts that were presented to them.

"Now look here, Susan, you..." the younger man started, then shook his head. "Oh, come on, Barbara, let's get out of here."

Rose had moved back to the Doctor and murmured to him, "Did you really lock them in?"

He winked at her, a ghost of a smile on his face. He was already rather fond of the girl, though Rassilon help him, he didn't know why.

"It's no use, you can't get out. He won't let you go," Susan sighed, giving up on her teachers.

The male teacher pointed at the console. "He closed the doors from over there. I saw him. Now, which is it? Which is it? Which control operates the door?"

Grasping the lapels of his suit jacket, the Doctor smirked at him. "You still think it's all an illusion?"

He snorted. "I know that free movement time and space is a scientific dream I don't expect to find solved in a junkyard."

"Wrong answer," Rose chirped, leaning easily on the console.

"Your arrogance is nearly as great as your ignorance," the Doctor snapped.

The man shook his head in frustration. "Will you open the door? Open the door! Susan, will you help us?"

"Don't do it, Susan," Rose told the girl. "They need this, all three of them."

"I-I mustn't," Susan apologized, obviously confused by Rose's involvement.

He stood tall and took a deep breath. "Very well, then. I'll have to risk it myself."

"I can't stop you," the Doctor said, almost smiling as he watched. Rose knew that look. He was giving this man just enough rope to hang himself.

Susan looked at her grandfather, realizing why he would just let her teacher go and shouted, "Don't touch it! It's live!"

He reached out to pull a lever and was immediately shocked by the TARDIS, who muttered angrily in Rose's mind.

"Ian! What on earth do you think you're doing?" Barbara cried in alarm.

Rose chuckled. "She's a bit particular about who touches her controls."

"Grandfather, let them go now, please," Susan begged.

He scoffed at the idea. "And by tomorrow we shall be a public spectacle, a subject for news and idle gossip."

"Oh really, Doctor, they'll behave, I'm sure. Not every human is a gossiping simpleton," the blonde suggested evenly earning her a dark look from the white haired man.

"They won't say anything," Susan added, imploring her grandfather.

He waved dismissively. "My dear child, of course they will. Put yourself in their place. They are bound to make some sort of a complaint to the authorities, or at the very least talk to their friends. If I do let them go, Susan, you realise of course we must go, too."

Susan stepped back, paling slightly. "No, Grandfather, we've had all this out before."

He took hold of his lapels, adopting his lecturing stance as he gazed at his granddaughter. The two teachers stared at them, trying to understand what he must be planning. Rose walked back to the console and leaned against it, crossing her arms. This was not the Doctor she knew, and he didn't have the same triggers as the Doctor she knew. It was like getting to know him all over again.

"There's no alternative, child," the Time Lord said firmly.

The younger girl grasped his arm, eyes wide as she begged him. "Please Grandfather! I want to stay! But they're both kind people. Why won't you trust them? All you've got to do is ask them to promise to keep our secret."

The Doctor shook his head stubbornly. "It's out of the question."

"I won't go, Grandfather. I won't leave the twentieth century. I'd rather leave the TARDIS and you."

He frowned and extricated himself from her grasp. "Now you're being sentimental and childish."

She shook her head and Rose narrowed her eyes.

He's got to travel, doesn't he? I mean, the Doctor has to get back out to the universe. There are people who need him, civilisations that will be destroyed without him to stop it?

_Yes. His travels are only just beginning. He thinks he is old, that he is finished with the business of living._

"No, I mean it," the girl insisted.

He raised a brow. "Very well. Then you must go with them. I'll open the door."

"Are you coming, Susan?" Barbara asked, holding out a hand to the teen as the Doctor moved to the console.

"You ain't letting them just go, are you?" Rose whispered to the Doctor.

He looked at her in surprise. "That's what they all seem to want."

Rose winked. "Where's the fun in that? Susan would be miserable if you left her, you know that. She doesn't belong stuck here anymore than you would."

The Doctor glanced back at his granddaughter. "I can understand that she's lonely. Perhaps you could stay, become her friend. You seem intelligent."

The blonde sighed heavily. "I would like nothing more, but it's not yet time. There are many things I need to do before I can travel with you consistently. But I have it on good authority that you'll see me again. You'll probably get rather tired of me."

The white haired man offered her a small smile. "Rose Tyler, I have only met you just now, yet I can already tell that would be highly unlikely. Do you truly suggest I should take these simple humans with me?"

Rose glanced toward the teachers. "I see potential, Doctor. Give them a chance to learn."

He looked at the console for a moment, and instead of opening the doors he began the time rotor moving. Susan spun to look at him in horror and ran toward him, grasping his arm.

"Oh, no, Grandfather! No!"

"Let me go," he replied calmly.

"No!"

"Get back to the ship, child. Hold it," he instructed sternly.

The Doctor and his granddaughter grabbed the console while the ship began moving around. Ian and Barbara were tossed around as though on a ship on the rough seas. Rose managed to maintain her balance through her connection to the TARDIS and her practice with a much more enthusiastic flight pattern from years in the future. Barbara landed in the jump seat, fainting from the sheer terror she was feeling, while Ian hit the floor rather heavily.

"Might want to warn them next time, Doctor," Rose noted blandly.

Susan looked at the blonde in slight accusation. "Did you make Grandfather do this?"

The blonde laughed brightly. "No one makes your Grandfather do anything. You ought to know that. But yes, I did suggest a trip or two might actually be good for these two."

"This is horrible," the younger girl moaned. "They aren't ready for something like this. They can't understand."

"Don't worry so, Susan," Rose reassured her. "They're stronger than you might think."

Barbara and Ian began to stir and Rose felt the pull of the TARDIS.

"Looks like my visit is done for now. I'll see you soon, Doctor," she smiled, stepping forward to kiss the older man's cheek.

There was just enough time to see him blush rather happily and touch the cheek in surprise before Rose was once more four years old and back in the little room with the rather unhappy man who'd been testing her.

"How'd I do?" she asked curiously, as he seemed to be packing up his belongings.

"You are a rather intelligent little girl, but you already know that. I plan to suggest an accelerated learning program for you," he answered tersely before heading for the door.

"I hope you become happier," she couldn't stop herself calling to his retreating back. Smothering her laugh at his quickened pace, she turned calmly to the mirror. "Mummy, can we go home now? I'm getting hungry."

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_A/N: Well? I know it's a bit short, but the first Doctor is still a bit difficult for me to write. I do love watching the episodes though, even if I didn't get to see this particular one. Let me know if you still want to read more!_


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